• NASDAQ -12.87
  • DOW -30.72
  • S&P 500 -4.60
  • 1 CAD = 0.9643 USD

“Targeting” the FLDS

2008-06-18 15:19:23

By Donald Richter

 

According to the Deseret News of June 12, 2008, a group of top law enforcement officials from Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas met on June 11, 2008, in a closed-door session at the office of the U.S. Attorney for Nevada to map out cooperative strategies to go after “crimes” within polygamous sects, focusing their discussion mainly on the FLDS Church. Among those attending the summit were Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, Washington County, Utah, Sheriff Kirk Smith, Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap, U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman, and at least one Texas Ranger.
 
When asked after the meeting if the FLDS Church should be concerned about the four states joining forces in their investigations, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard smiled. “You could draw that conclusion,” he said.
 
The title of the Deseret News’ article states the case very clearly: “Summit targets FLDS.” We think that the attitudes and actions of these officials should concern all American citizens, not just the FLDS Church.
 
 What right do government officials have to “target” any religious group? It is apparent to anyone examining the facts that such actions against the FLDS Church are not aimed at investigating known crimes but in trying to “discover” crimes to prosecute in the hope of stamping out a religious culture. 
 
Immediately following the YFZ raid in April, the media was flooded with reports of forced marriages, dozens of underage mothers, boys suffering a high percentage of broken bones and probably the victims of physical and sexual abuse, and brainwashed women and children living as virtual prisoners in one large household within a walled “compound.”
 
One by one these allegations have been proven false until the Third Court of Appeals ruled that there was no evidence justifying the forced removal of over 450 children. This ruling was sustained by the Texas Supreme Court. After over two months of investigation into allegations of abuse at YFZ, the Texas Department of Public Safety still has “a lack of hard evidence.” The reason is that the FLDS are not an abusive people. 
 
The Salt Lake Tribune of June 14, 2008, reported that the FBI had conducted a federal civil rights investigation of the FLDS Church in 1985 at the request of Brent D. Ward, U.S. Attorney for Utah. The investigation concluded that the FLDS Church “was doing nothing worth prosecuting,” and the case was dismissed without any charges being filed.
 
The attorneys general of both Utah and Arizona have been seeking a joint federal-state task force to investigate the FLDS. This idea has met with resistance at the federal level, FBI director Robert Mueller stating that his agency has “other priorities.”
 
Still authorities are pursuing their targeting on a state level. The attitude seems to be that even though there is nothing obvious to prosecute, we still don’t like the beliefs and practices of the FLDS, and if we keep looking hard enough, we are bound to find something we can go after.
 

All Americans need to take a hard look at the direction our country is heading. When we add these new efforts to target a religious culture to the blatant abuses of civil rights by Texas authorities in the YFZ episode, it is obvious that our nation is already far down the road to becoming a police state. Is the level of governmental control to which the FLDS people are being subjected really what America is all about? And if such abuses of power are allowed to continue, how safe are any of us?


Printer Friendly Version


Comments